The other day, after posting Extreme wings of GOP denying culpability in loss, some of our readers felt that it was a case of liberals telling conservatives how to win elections. Part of me wanted to snidely and snarkily say,” well, it looks like you guys need a little help here.” I resisted and have been thinking about it ever since.
Let’s move the shift away from conservatives vs. liberals. Conservatives and liberals are NOT posts, but political positions on a continuum. What’s a liberal? What’s a conservative? Are there positions in between? Of course. Let’s deal with the terms Republican and Democrat since those words can be exact. You either vote Republican or Democrat. You don’t vote sorta.
Republicans had jolly well better decide ways to attract people to the party and I mean people like me. I sure fit their demographic. Older, white, economics, etc. In fact, I am an escapee from the party, granted, some 30 years ago. Republicans just aren’t going to be able to rely on the southern white vote any longer, at least along the Atlantic seaboard. According to the Washington Post:
Obama’s 2012 numbers in the Southeastern coastal states outperformed every Democratic nominee since Carter and significantly narrowed past gaps between Democratic and Republican candidates. The lone possible exception is Georgia in 1996, which gave Arkansas native Bill Clinton 45.8 percent in 1996; Obama fell 0.4 percent short of that mark in tentative 2012 results, but ongoing revisions could close the gap.
The proportion of white voters in the South is also shrinking. Southern whites voted overwhelmingly for Romney, but in six Southern states, far fewer of them appear to have gone to the polls on Nov. 6 than the number who voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2008.
In Florida, the share of votes cast by whites this year fell to 66 percent, down from 73 percent in 2000. In Georgia, the number of white voters declined while African American registration increased nearly 6 percent and Hispanic voters grew by 36 percent.
“Republicans can focus all they want on Hispanics,” said John Anzalone, a Montgomery, Ala., pollster who helped analyze swing states for the Obama campaign. “But they also have a problem with whites, in this election cycle, just showing up.”
Shifting demographics are part of the change along the Atlantic coast.
In every Southern state except Louisiana, the population of African Americans grew substantially faster than that of whites over the past decade. The growth is fueled by black retirees from the north and rising numbers of young, well-educated blacks in prosperous cities such as Atlanta, Norfolk, Charlotte and Charleston, S.C.
Other factors were expected to pull Blacks across the aisle. Republicans expected a rift within the black church over gay marriage and abortion. They counted on those social issues to pull votes over to Romney. It wasn’t going to happen. Those who have lived in the south and who aren’t political numbers wonks knew better in the first place. Some reactions to such a suggestion are as follows:
Black pastors — some of whom had preached against gay marriage in the past — rallied to the president. Romney also hit a number of sour notes with minorities during the campaign, including his apparent suggestion that blacks who support Obama want “more free stuff” from government.
“Romney was real disrespectful,” said Rodney Collier, 58, a black stylist at Haywood’s Hair Images in Richmond. “How can you be so negative and nasty to a sitting president?”
Contrary to the expectations of many Republican pollsters, black voters came out in droves on Election Day and voted overwhelmingly for Obama — near or above 95 percent in most parts of the South.
Republicans are still reeling from the results of that election. They didn’t see it coming. I just don’t understand why not. I knew it all along and I didn’t say anything here because I am superstitious. No jinxing! I think other people here knew it too. I sure didn’t hear any betting going on!
What I don’t know is how the Republicans can expect people to be attracted to a party that wants to nix women’s reproductive rights, cut back social security and Medicare, round up immigrants to deport, do away with any vestiges of gun control, tear down the wall between church and state, reduce services for poor people and kill off a health care program it took over a half century to bring to fruition. You either care about these things or you don’t. The Republican Party can’t change how you think about these things. If they got rid of their platform, that might fix the problem but I don’t think that is going to help all that much because the people are still going to have their core beliefs that are on a collision course with those who don’t vote Republican.
@blue
Thanks for your response. I appreciate the fact that you made the effort to outline where you feel there are significant differences between Obamacare and Romneycare.
I’m certainly no expert on healthcare policy, but I have read a lot about this subject from various sources. Some of your assertions that are problematic, from what I’ve read:
1. You assert that there are no cost controls. There are actually many cost controls in the Act that take effect over time. For one thing, it will move us toward the “result based care” that the Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic are pioneering. This will replace the “service based care” we have now that pays for tests and procedures without concern for outcome.
2. You assert that the Act will “Result in services losses elsewhere- like defense.” Now, THAT’s a leap! First I heard that one! How will it do this?
3. You assert that a “massive new bureaucracy” will be needed for a plan dictated by a single political party. The states will run the exchanges and the insurance companies will still provide coverage for a plan designed by the Heritage Foundation and promoted by Republicans as recently as 2007, so where is the “massive bureaucracy?”
4. The $750,000,000 cuts to Medicare you cite are also in Ryan’s budget and are actually to Medicare Advantage payments to insurers- not to recipients.
5. You assert the Act will cost 500 billion in new taxes with no documentation. I can just as easily assert that the Act will save 4 trillion in taxes, but that doesn’t make it true!
6. You assert “major” penalties for non-participation. My understanding is there is a charge for those who can afford insurance but choose not to buy it, thereby putting the taxpayer at risk of covering their healthcare costs. I think it’s around $1000.00. Hardly “major.”
7. You assert that the Act is national socialism. Socialism is the abolition of private property and the state ownership of the means of production. The Act still results in individuals contracting with insurance companies for health care coverage, so it’s more a giveaway to insurance companies than socialism. Single payer healthcare, like Medicare or military healthcare would arguably be more socialism-like, just like public libraries, the National Park Service, the Interstate Highway System, Social Security, etc. All entities that are pretty well liked, by the way…
8. You assert that the Act creates a board to control benefits, etc. That actually may be true, but right now faceless insurance company hacks make those decisions for you with no ability for you to intercede. It seems like a government-run board with oversight would be an improvement on that. And that board is also where much of the savings will come from.
Blue, it appears that you and I agree that the Act isn’t perfect- as you say, it leaves too many children uninsured, for example. Any change is scary, and the Act could be better, but it makes a move in the right direction, and it will be massaged as time goes on to be even better.
@middleman
“Any change is scary, and the Act could be better, but it makes a move in the right direction, and it will be massaged as time goes on to be even better.”
Your faith in politicians and bureaucrats is amazing.
@Cargosquid Actually, I don’t have much faith in either politicians OR bureaucrats, but I do have faith in democracy and the fact that we’ll keep at ’em until they get it right.